The bus ride to Hoi Anh must reside somewhere in one of Dante's circles of hell. I wouldn't say that it was down in the 9th circle where people are immersed to their necks in ice, but it was definitely below limbo. Imagine spending 24 hours on a bus with the misleading title of "sleeper". In reality "sleeper" means "sleeper" for Asians - if you are over 4 feet there is no way you can lie down. However, you can get about three inches from lying down so this is almost more cruel than knowing you are going to be sitting the whole time. On the other hand, the bus is the cheapest way to get from the top of vietnam to the bottom, so if you are short on cash its a good option. I would not recommend it if you: 1) like sleep, 2) don't like honking 3) like your sanity, 4) are over 4 foot 5.
We stopped in Hue for four hours waiting for the bus to Hoi Anh to come and so I took the opportunity to check out the ruins of the Citadel, which the bible (LP) recommended seeing with a cool british girl who I met on the bus through out joint suffering. On the way I popped into a book store and was so excited to see Les Mis that I did not notice the little "volume 2" on the bottom. I only realized my mistake later when I settled happily down with my book and wondered why the first page was 500.
The Citadel was cool - very much in shambles because of heavy shelling it had received from the americans during the vietnam war. It was relatively empty so we were able to walk around the rambling and overgrown ruins undisturbed for a few hours. A lot of the architecture looked as though it was influenced by Chinese building, so it all looked very familiar to me.
Got back on the bus, arrived at Hoi An, and managed to find a hotel for $7 US per night. My room was big, had AC, and Queen bed, bathroom and a TV. Nothing buys you everything in Vietnam. We also got "fresh beer" for 3,000 Dong, less than 25 cents.
# 5 is funny (these are the hotel rules)
The next day poured rain the whole time- and in Vietnam it is not like in seattle where you can function in the rain - this is tropical rain, that you could easily take a shower in - I think the water pressure was actually better than my shower-head back in China.
3,000 dong beer (25 cents), and pretty lanterns the first night we were there
We spent most of the day getting clothes tailored, which is the main attraction of Hoi Anh. Before coming I was dubious since I wanted to buy more "Culturally Vietnamese" souvenirs, things you could not get in china or any other country, but the pull of the tailor shops is impossible to ignore, and I don't advise you to ignore it either. It was the highlight of my trip.
Once you enter one of the many shops lining the street you can either point to something they have on display and have them make it to your size, or if you don't find anything on their mannequins to your taste they will bury you behind a mountain of old catalogs and fabrics from which you can point to any picture and they will make it. I picked two winter coats and they were ready for me to fit 4 hours later.. it was absolutely amazing. They were $60 together
After the clothes stores we moved on to shoes, which can also be made specially for you. I picked a set of old Nike Hightops and got to pick every single material that went on them except for the sole. I'll take a pic and put it here so you can see.. they are quite ridiculous and I am saving them for the Kanye concert on the 1st of November. They cost $20. so cheap
To round off the day of excessive money spending we went out to a new bar that had just opened and was advertising free rum and cokes until 11pm. Some of the guys from Hanoi were there and this coupled with the amount of Italians in the bar dictated that it was going to be a big night, a little too big. The guys and I started a dance party on top of the pool table and pretty soon the entire club (it was very small) was up there dancing, and the italian girls had completely accepted me and we were sharing cheek bessos to say hello.
The walls of the bar were completely covered with messages from other travelers and so naturally I wanted to join the fun. The usual things to write would be: I love Vietnam!!, or Liz from the US.. you know.. something normal.... but no.. that would make way too much sense. I had just been talking to some of the Italians about Palin, and so I decided that the best thing to do would be to write: Fuck Sarah Palin... so yeah.. now in some dive bar in Vietnam it says Fuck Sarah Palin outside the bathroom...In ten years everyone is going to be so confused by that. Speaking of Palin, watch this:
(I would put the Youtube link but for some reason China decided that this is dangerous so it is blocked)
After this the night just quickly degenerated ending with us buying vodka and wine and all drinking in my hotel room. The guys kind of passed out on my bed and said that they didn't know where their hostel was... but I really didn't want them sleeping in my bed for obvious reasons - I wanted to sleep there - so I kicked them out.. hopefully they managed to find it and aren't in a gutter somewhere, since I did not hear from them again.. I guess I should not make jokes about that.
The rest of the time was uneventful: I went to the town market which was a chaotic mass of food, chickens, fish, etc, and walked around the town. It was a pretty typical market and does not merit much description, just the pictures below are fine to get an impression of it. The conical hats are still worn by all of the women, which I found very interesting - I think my favorite description of them is as "limpet hats" from the Quiet American
I also went to the beach which was GREAT since I got to dive into waves for the first time in three months.. and probably the last time until Thailand.. and they might not even have waves in Thailand, I don't know. The beach was pretty nice, and there were lots of really pretty shells that I collected for people back home.
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